A Case Of The Blues

There I was with Ronny O. We were seated on a highway guardrail somewhere along a vast uninhabited stretch of land a hundred miles from home at three in the morning on a muggy Thursday. Nearby was Ronny O's broken down beetle. The two of us were commiserating over our vehicular misfortune and also marveling at the luck of the couple who had earlier occupied the VW's back seat. They had just moments ago thumbed a ride with the very first vehicle to come along, an eighteen wheeler. Ronny O was reluctant to abandon his bug. But we were both weary and ready for bed. We gave ourselves another half hour's wait. If rescue didn't come within that time we too would stick out our thumbs. I was eager to go for I also had hanging over my head a recent ultimatum: if I missed work again or came in late without a reasonable excuse I would be fired. And there I was with less than four hours to make it under the wire at seven AM. It didn't look good. I sighed and wondered how I managed to wind up in such a predicament.

The evening had started out with such pleasant expectations. Two hundred miles from our homes at a club in rural Rhode Island, the Fabulous Thunderbirds were appearing. It was a perfect reason for a road trip. I met up with Ronny O and he introduced me to a young and enthusiastic couple who were like us fans of the blues. The four of us hopped into Ronny O's bug and headed east. Along the way Ronny O regaled us with choice selections from his vast collection of recorded blues. We bopped to the music and talked with merriment about the show ahead at a club in the hinterlands of the tiniest state in the union.

We made it to the club with a minor hitch. We'd been given faulty directions and our two hour trip had turned into three. But we made it and we paid our way in. A short time later I got some pot from Ronny O who had no papers or pipe to go along with it. I spent a frustrating twenty minutes asking every long hair patron of the club for papers. Finally I got one and I headed outside to roll up a joint. In the parking lot I leaned against a car with my head bent down and went at it. I crimped the ends of the paper and dropped in the pot. When I had it perfectly rolled I lifted my head and stuck out my tongue to lick the glue. That's when I saw the police cruiser stopped directly in front of me some four feet away. I immediately pictured myself calling my father to tell him I was in jail. The cop who was driving frowned at me and shook his head as if to say, "You dolt." I shrugged my shoulders and crumpled the joint and let the contents fall to the ground. The cop shook his head once again, "Loser," before driving off. I went back in the club.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds were hot that night. They had the club rocking until two in the morning. Afterwards we headed out into the night completely sated.

In no time at all we were lost. We wound up driving down a bumpy dirt road that paralleled the highway we wanted to be on. But we couldn't find a way to get to it. The dirt road took us deeper into the woods. We must have been on that rutted road for close to an hour before we finally found a our way to the highway. We all sighed with relief. Finally, we were headed home.

A short while later the back seat couple were whispering urgently. "What's that smell?" "It smells like something burning." A minute or two later they spoke up. "Something's not right." Ronny O turned on the interior light and we saw that the bug was full of smoke. We were on fire. The couple screamed for their lives and before Ronny O could make it to the side of the road and stop the guy of the couple tried to climb over me and get to the door. It was pandemonium inside the bug. Ronny O hopped out while the bug was still running. The rest of us scrambled out with the sheer conviction we were escaping a death trap.

We stared at the bug. It did not meet our expectations by bursting into flames. The fire was an electrical one that merely smoked as it fried the wires and made the bug inoperable. There we were stuck in an unpopulated nowhere with no help in sight. We practically had the highway to ourselves. At the approach of the first headlights in twenty minutes the couple stuck out their thumbs. And just like that they were gone.

Ronny O suggested we try jump starting the bug. We spent the next twenty minutes pushing the car and popping the clutch to no avail. Worn out and flustered we sat on the guardrail. Morning light was dawning. A police cruiser came upon us and pulled over. The cop stepped out of his car to question the two of us. As we were explaining the situation to him a car sped by and before it got twenty feet away there was an explosion. The three of us turned that way in time to see the car strike the guardrail and come to a screeching halt. The passenger door flew open and a girl scrambled out and hopped over the guardrail and lit out for parts unknown. The cop excused himself. He drove down to the car and spoke to the occupants. Minutes later the car drove off. Then so did the cop. He did not return to offer us any assistance. As for the girl her whereabouts remained a mystery. We never saw her again.

Somewhat reluctantly we stuck out our thumbs. We didn't have to wait too long. A dark low riding sedan with a metallic gurgle pulled over for us. I sat in the back. The floorboards were littered with empty beer cans and assorted trash. The driver was disheveled and in need of a shave. He spoke ominously of the dangers of the night on the open road. He gave me the willies. At one point we hit a bump in the road and he laughed and said that it was the last hitchhiker he had picked up and killed. I searched around me for an improvised weapon. Just outside of Hartford, he dropped us off with the words, "Be careful of who you ride with."

At that point Ronny and I abandoned the highway and went looking for a pay-phone to call my brother and plead that he rescue us. After a weary interlude of searching side streets in vain we stumbled upon a phone booth. I placed the call. By then I was suppose to be at work in a half hour. But I was in no condition for an eight hour shift. By the time my brother arrived and drove us home I decided I was staying put. I called into work and spoke with the manager who had given me that final warning. She listened to my tale of woe without interjecting. She then surprised me by not telling me that I was fired. Instead she told me to make sure I was not late the following morning. And my job, though far from my liking, was safe for another day. After having something to eat I retired to my bedroom where I put a Fabulous Thunderbirds album on my turntable and got into bed. With the blues playing at soft volume I drifted off to sleep.